The Morning News: What Happens After the #TaxScamBill, Amazon Sends Must-Read Letter to Seattle Politicians

In the #TaxScamBill, a tax break for private jet owners: "No tax shall be imposed...on any amounts paid by an aircraft owner for aircraft management service related to...maintenance and support of the aircraft owner's aircraft or flights on the aircraft owner's aircraft..."kafl/gettyimages.com

Seattle Times Columnist Danny Westneat Makes an Important Prediction About What Happens After the #TaxScamBill:Now that the GOP plans to add lots of debt to the U.S.'s already massive debt with its tax cuts to the rich and corporations, it will demand cuts on social programs to address the debt crisis that the rich and a number of unjustified wars have caused.

Westneat:

See how this works? Spending cuts are notoriously unpopular. So Republicans are instead slashing taxes, which people tend to like except that it obviously worsens the government’s fiscal position. But then the worsened fiscal position can become the rallying cry to slash spending—on health programs like Medicare and Medicaid, and also on Social Security.

But it gets worse.

You see, the thing that most Americans do not know or talk about, but the moneychangers on Wall Street totally bank on, is the Greenspan put. What it means is that the government will never let stock prices fall below a certain level. This is what investors understand as a free market—the knowledge of the government's commitment to the markets frees them to speculate without fear of losing fantastic amounts of money. The name neoclassical economists have given this system is "meta-moral hazard," which is "the idea... that investors in the United States [can] expect the Federal Reserve [to] take decisive action to prevent the market from falling but not to stop it rising." When markets crash, the government stops the fall and contains asset prices. Much of the cost of this action is transformed into government debt, which is then packaged and sold right back to the rich.

The planned tax cuts (which will direct cash to the stock market—"a string of corporate giants have said that they would give back to shareholders any gains they make from corporate tax cuts proposed in the GOP's tax plan") and deep cuts in social spending will create a government that's stripped down to three primary functions: maintaining a huge army, operating the Greenspan put, and producing public debts that are purchased by bondholders.

This is why you should always read your Marx first thing in the morning:

The public debt becomes one of the most powerful levers of primitive accumulation. As with the stroke of an enchanter’s wand, it endows barren money with the power of breeding and thus turns it into capital, without the necessity of its exposing itself to the troubles and risks inseparable from its employment in industry or even in usury. The state creditors actually give nothing away, for the sum lent is transformed into public bonds, easily negotiable, which go on functioning in their hands just as so much hard cash would.

Amazon Sends Letter to Seattle's Penitent Politicians:These politicians (five councilmembers, five state senators, seven others) want desperately to “hit the refresh button” with the gigantic e-commerce corporation in the heart of their booming city. They are penitent because HQ2 has shown the error of their ways. In the letter, Amazon lets the cities fathers and mothers know that the company has pumped, by their estimate, $38 billion into the economy between 2010 and 2016. The letter clearly wants them to think long and hard about that terrific figure before the proposed "roundtable discussion in January at [its] offices." At the meeting (you must come to us, not us to you), Amazon will certainly "discuss the challenges and opportunities ahead for the city and how [to] best work together on them." When the politicians visit the HQ1, which may actually end up being smaller than HQ2, they may enter the tower walking backwards, heads bowed down and hooded, eyes never looking up. They will only speak when permitted. They will not dare to look directly at Bezos' $100-billion-face. They will show this temple of post-late-capitalism nothing but the deepest respect. Puget Sound Business Journal obtained and posted the whole letter.

The Man Who Talked to Seattle Times About His Girlfriend's Arrest and ICE's Increased Enforcement: Was tracked down and arrested by ICE because he was "in the newspaper." His name is Baltazar “Rosas” Aburto Gutierrez. He is being held at Northwest Detention Center. He can't afford $25,000 bond. He harvested clams for low wages. He made clams affordable for American consumers. This is what the road to totalitarianism looks like.

Never forget that 48 years ago today the FBI & Chicago Police Dept conspired to murder Fred Hampton in his apartment because they were afraid he was creating a multiracial political coalition to challenge those in power. He was just 21 years old. pic.twitter.com/Jw4KxrEvgJ— Clint Smith (@ClintSmithIII) December 4, 2017

Because No One Is On the Streets Screaming for an End to This Madness: I will end with this sad story. She was driving down Rainier Avenue South when she spotted a man in the middle of the road. It was just after the third day of December began. She pulled to the side of the road, got out of her car, and walked to the man, who appeared to be unresponsive. He was still alive. But before she could help him, another car hit her and the injured man. The woman was badly hurt but the injured man was killed instantly. KOMO reports that "[d]etectives believe the man was struck by an unknown truck before the woman found him on the road." The driver who struck the woman and the injured man is under investigation.

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